As Twitter luminaries queued up to ridicule his latest photo opportunity, the
Prime Minister chose to tell us he was in on the joke.

Tweet it out, Scotty! Long ago, in the days before he bestrode Twitter with two accounts, David Cameron was forced to apologise after declaring of the social networking site: “Too many twits (sic) might make a twat”. These days, he is so comfortable in the medium that on Friday he chose to share his latest witticism online with Sir Patrick Stewart, the Star Trek actor.

The “joke” began on Wednesday evening when the Prime Minister took to his computer to post a photograph of himself on a phone call with President Obama. “We are united in condemnation of Russia’s actions,” he wrote.

Soberly dressed in white shirt and deep purple tie, he stared stonily into middle distance as the cord dangled from his hand. The entire look was reminiscent of those grave-faced compensation solicitors “waiting for your call” in advertisements for victims of workplace injuries.

In all, the effect was to convey rather less gravitas than Mr Cameron had perhaps intended. Although the real picture was retweeted more than 8,000 times, many tweeters unkindly chose to post spoof photographs instead. One added a shot of himself looking severely into the banana he was cradling; another dug out an old picture of Batman grasping a phone and pondered if he was next on Mr Cameron’s call list.

And Sir Patrick uploaded an image in which he listened reassuringly to a tube of Wet Ones. “I’m now patched in as well,” he informed the two statesmen. “Sorry for the delay.”

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So, to prove how waggish he, too, can be, on Friday morning Mr Cameron unleashed another photograph: this time, in conversation at Downing Street with Bill Clinton. He chose to post it directly to Sir Patrick, tittering: “Talking to another US President, this time face to face, not on the phone.”

The line met with fewer guffaws than the Prime Minister might have hoped.

He once criticised his predecessor, Gordon Brown, for being an “analogue politician in a digital age”. He clearly places himself in the latter camp. If only he wasn’t always quite so determined to prove it.